Box adds file previews and other platform-specific features to its Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps

Box announced today that it has released more mobile features for its both Windows mobile platforms, highlighting its faith in the platform in the long-term. The company said that since it launched Box for Windows 8, it has been downloaded more than 500,000 times and continues to see interest and adoption of its apps.

With the new release, one of the common features between both Windows mobile platforms is the ability to preview documents without needing to open up the files.

Currently available on its Android app, Box says that it realized that it sees more than 100,000 previews per day just through that single app. Having this scale seems logical because how often do you find yourself reluctantly opening up a file that might take an exorbitant amount of time to load when you would rather have a sneak preview of it to know if it was the correct one?

Box says “the real value of preview technology on a Windows Phone or Windows 8 device is in its unique ability to show previews of 75+ file types.” It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at an AutoCAD, Adobe Illustrator, or PowerPoint file.

Other updates include platform-specific features:

For Windows 8:

Built a navigation bar (swipe from top) for a quick way to get to your All Files home, Updates and more.

Improved the spacing and utility of the semantic zoom functionality.

For Windows Phone:

Added support for Office documents and PDFs to open directly in Microsoft Office.

Designed a new wide cycle tile; pin our Live Tile to your Start screen at the largest size, and you’ll see your Box Updates feed rotate through it.

The company says that the new features and enhancements are available on all Windows devices now.

Ken Yeung is a reporter for The Next Web based in San Francisco, CA. He carries around a big camera & likes to write about tech, startups, parties, and interesting people. Follow him on Twitter, on Facebook, and Google+.